Blackstone and Google launch $5 billion TPU cloud venture
Blackstone announced a joint venture with Google to create a new U.S.-based company offering compute-as-a-service with Google Cloud's Tensor Processing Units (TPUs). Blackstone will make an initial $5 billion equity commitment to bring 500 MW of capacity online by 2027, with Google supplying hardware, software, and services. The new company, led by Benjamin Treynor Sloss, aims to meet growing demand for AI workloads.
Key Takeaways
- Blackstone is making an initial $5 billion equity commitment from funds it manages.
- The joint venture targets 500 MW of capacity online in 2027, with plans to scale over time.
- Google will supply TPUs, software, and services for the new U.S.-based company.
- Benjamin Treynor Sloss, a Google executive with more than two decades of infrastructure experience, will serve as CEO.
- Google says the venture will give customers another way to access cloud TPUs beyond Google Cloud.
Why It Matters
This puts $5 billion of Blackstone capital behind a dedicated TPU cloud company, with 500 MW of capacity targeted for 2027. For AI infrastructure buyers, the immediate effect is another route to access Google’s TPUs without going directly through Google Cloud. The move also ties Blackstone’s data center scale to Google’s hardware, software, and operations stack, reflecting demand for accelerated compute. The next concrete marker to watch is whether the first 500 MW comes online in 2027 as planned.
Read full article at blackstone.com